Meg of Mystery Mountain Part 22

Merry laughingly interrupted: "And now that you have made that long speech to Jane, it would be sort of an anti-climax, would it not, for me to formally introduce you? However, Jane, this is my wayward young brother Bob, whom I am endeavoring to bring up the way that he should go." Jane held out a slim white hand, but, although she said just the right thing, her thoughts were busy. Something had happened that she did not understand.

Mrs. Starr rested that afternoon in one of the comfortable reclining chairs on the wide front porch. Mr. Starr was most interested in all that Mr. Packard had to show him, while the young people went for a horseback ride in merry cavalcade. Bob Starr was eager to see the washout, and decide for himself what chance of escape they might have had. Julie was overjoyed that this time she also might accompany the riders. A small spotted pony was chosen for her, as it was a most reliable little creature--sure-footed and gentle.

For a while Jane and Merry rode side by side, then Bob and Jean Sawyer, who for some time had ridden far back of the others, galloped up and rode alongside of the two girls, Bob next to Jane and Jean close to Merry.

There was a pang in the dark girl's heart. She had noticed several times at lunch that Jean had glanced across at Marion Starr and had smiled at her when their eyes met. But the trail soon became too rough to permit four to ride abreast, and so Jean called: "Miss Starr, suppose you and I ride ahead and set the pace."

Marion smiled at her friend. "That will give you and Bob a chance to become better acquainted," she said, then urged her horse to a gallop, and away they went, Jean and Merry, laughing happily, and yet when they had quite outdistanced the rest, Jane noted that they rode more slowly and close together, as though in serious converse.

"They surely are becoming acquainted very rapidly," the girl thought miserably. She had not realized until now how very much Jean Sawyer's admiration had meant to her. Suddenly she felt so alone and looked back to find the brother who had always cared so much for her, but he also was completely engrossed in another girl, for Meg had dismounted to examine some growth by the trail, and Dan, standing at her side, was listening, as he gazed into her dusky eyes, with great evident interest. Jane sighed.

"I deserve it all," she thought. "I have not been lovable, and so why should I expect to be loved?"

"Jean Sawyer seems to be a mighty fine chap," her companion was saying.

"Is he overseer of this cattle ranch?"

"Yes, I understand that is the position he fills," Jane said, feeling suddenly very weary, and wishing that she could ride back to the ranch house. A fortnight before she would have done so, but now a thought for the happiness of others came to prevent such a selfish decision, for, of course, if Jane turned back, some of the others would also, for the lads were too chivalrous to permit her to ride alone. Bob, glancing at her, decided that she was not interested in his companionship, but for Merry's sake he made one more effort at friendly conversation.

"I do not suppose, though, that so fine a chap and one so capable will remain forever in the position of an employee," he ventured. "Do you know where he hails from?"

"No, I do not," Jane replied. Then wishing to change the subject, she pointed toward a hill over which one lone vulture was swinging in wide circles. "There is the washout!" Merry and Jean were galloping back toward them.

The girl rode up to Jane as she said with a shudder: "Oh, I don't want to go any closer! When I saw that wicked looking vulture and heard why he is circling there I could picture all too plainly what _would_ have happened if we had been killed and----"

It was seldom that Merry was so overcome. "Jane, do you mind riding back with me?" she pleaded. "I want to go to my mother."

And so the two girls turned back toward the ranch house. They a.s.sured the others that they did not mind going alone. Jane noticed that Merry said nothing of the conversation that she had had with Jean Sawyer; in fact, she did not mention his name and neither did Jane. When they reached the ranch house Merry ran up the steps, and kneeling, she held her mother close. That sweet-faced woman smoothed the sunny hair of the girl she so loved, marveling at the unusual emotion, but when her daughter told her how much more vividly she could picture their escape, after she had seen the washout, and the vulture, the older woman understood. Jane, watching her friend, felt that something more than a view of the road where there might have been a tragedy was affecting her dearest friend, nor was she wrong.

Mr. Packard prevailed upon Mrs. and Mr. Starr to remain as his guests for at least another day, that the mother of Merry and Bob might become thoroughly rested before the return journey to the East, which was to be made by train, the automobile to be shipped back.

"O, Mrs. Starr, how I do wish you would permit Merry and Bob to visit us in our cabin on Redfords Peak," Jane said when this decision had been reached. "Couldn't they stay until we return East next month?"

Mrs. Starr looked inquiringly at her husband, but it was Merry who replied. "Not quite that long, dear," she said, slipping an arm about her friend. "I very much want to be in New York on September the first."

Just why she glanced quickly up at Jean Sawyer, a pretty flush tinting her cheeks, Jane could not understand. There was an actual pain in her heart, and she caught her breath quickly before she could reply in a voice that sounded natural: "Well, then, at least you and Bob can remain with us for two weeks and that will be better than not at all."

The selfish side of Jane's nature was saying to her: "Why urge Merry to remain, when, if she were to go, you could have Jean Sawyer's companionship all to yourself?" But Jane had indeed changed, for she put the thought away from her as unworthy, and gave her friend a little affectionate hug when Mrs. Starr said that the plan was quite agreeable to her.

"Good! That's great!" Dan declared warmly. Then he excused himself, for he saw Meg Heger returning with Julie from a "botany expedition" in the foothills.

The mountain girl smiled up at him in her frank way when he ran down the garden path toward them. "Have you news to tell us?" she inquired.

"You're looking wonderfully well these days, Daniel Abbott. I do not believe that your lungs were affected, after all."

"Indeed, they were not!" The boy whirled to walk at Meg's side, and as she smiled up at him in her good comradeship way, he was almost impelled to add, "But my heart is." Instead, he laughed boyishly, and took the basket of specimens that the girl carried. Peeping under the cover, he exclaimed: "Why, if you haven't taken them up, root and all."

Meg nodded joyfully. "Wasn't it nice of Mr. Packard to tell me that I might transplant them to my own botany gardens. Aren't they the most exquisite star-like flowers and the most delicate pinks and blues?" Then, when the cover had been replaced, Meg lifted long-lashed, dusky eyes that were more serious. "Dan, do you suppose Jane would mind if I went home this afternoon? Think of it, in another fortnight I will be going to Scarsburg to take the entrance examinations for the normal, and kind old Teacher Bellows is giving me some special review work which I cannot afford to miss."

"If you return, I will also," the lad said; then, when he saw that his companion was about to protest, he hurriedly added: "Not because you need my protection, but because I _wish_ to be with you."

Meg gave no outward sign of having understood the deep underlying meaning of the words that she had heard, but the warmth in her heart a.s.sured her that she was glad, glad that Dan wanted to accompany her.

Gerald came bounding toward them, dressed still in his fringed cowboy suit. "Say, kids," he shouted inelegantly, then looked rather sheepishly at Julie, as though he expected one of her grandmotherly rebukes, but hearing none, he blurted on: "We're going to have a corn and potato roast for supper tonight. Won't that be high jinks, though? Mr. Packard has a barbecue pit on the other side of the little lake. Oh. boy!" he continued, rubbing the spot where the feast would eventually be. "You bet you I'll be there with bells!" Then, catching Julie by the hand, he raced with her to the corral, where they liked to look over the log fence at the horses and colts in the enclosure.

Dan smiled down at his companion. "Let us wait until morning and start at sunrise, shall we?" he suggested. "If we go this afternoon, our host might think that we do not appreciate his plans for our entertainment."

Meg agreed willingly, little dreaming that so slight an incident was to make a vital change in her hitherto uneventful life.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE BARBEQUE

Julie and Gerald were hilariously excited as the hour of the roast approached. Mr. Packard had selected them as his aides, had made them a committee on arrangement. They took wood to the pit and then went with the ever-beaming Chinese gardener to the field where the corn grew, and they carried back between them a heavily laden basket. Then the long table near the lake that was sheltered by cottonwood trees was set with the plate and dishes found on every cattle ranch in reserve for round-ups and similar occasions when many are to be fed.

In the center Julie placed a huge bouquet of scarlet salvia and golden glow to make the table "extra-pretty," and she put Meg's name nearest the flowers, but, with the innocence of childhood, she put Dan's name at the place directly opposite. When the guests were finally summoned, Julie's big brother protested that he didn't want to sit directly behind that huge bouquet because he couldn't "see anything." Julie looked perplexed.

"Why, yes, you can so! You can see the foothills, and just lots of things."

Then Gerald blurted out, "Silly, he can't see Meg Heger, can he, when you've put her right across from the bouquet?"

How they all laughed, even Meg, and Mrs. Starr, glancing at the mountain girl, marveled at her beauty, and thought it quite natural that any lad would rather look at her than at a scarlet and gold bouquet.

Mr. Packard settled the matter by removing the huge centerpiece to a side table. "There, that's heaps better!" Jean said as he smiled across at Marion. "Now I also have a better view of the foothills," he added mischievously.

It was hard, cruelly hard for Jane, even though Bob Starr, who was seated next to her, tried his utmost to be entertaining. Bob was indeed puzzled.

He was not at all conceited, but, up to the present, he had found even very attractive girls seeking, rather than spurning, his companionship.

"Icebergs aren't in my line," he decided, and turned toward little Julie, who was on his other side, and whose fresh enthusiasm was interesting, even to a lad several years her senior.

Merry noticed that her best friend did not eat with the same zest that was very apparent in the appet.i.tes of all the others, and, after a time, she suggested to Bob that he change seats with her. The table had just been cleared and Gerald had darted away with the Chinaman to bring on the generous slices of watermelon, and so the change was made very easily.

Merry slipped a hand under the table and held Jane's in a close, loving clasp. "Dear," she said very softly, "you aren't feeling well, are you?

Shall we go back to the ranch house? I do not mind missing the watermelon."

"No, thank you, Marion," Jane's voice, try as she might to make it sound natural, had in it a note of reserve that was almost cold. For the first time in the years that they had been so intimate, Jane had used the formal Marion. The friends who loved her always called her Merry.

Something was wrong, radically wrong. Merry ate her slice of melon, wondering what it could possibly be, and finally decided that if Jane's manner remained unchanged throughout the evening, she would accompany her mother to the East on the following day.

"There is going to be a wonderful moon tonight," Mr. Packard said, "Why don't you young people climb the foothill trail and watch it rise?"

"That's a good suggestion!" Jean Sawyer at once offered to lead the expedition. Then, as everyone had arisen, he went to the two girls, who were seated together, and said with a smile which included them both, "Shall we three go ahead?"

But Jane replied, "You and Merry may go. I have one of my sick headaches.

I shall go to bed at once." Jean Sawyer looked at the girl almost sadly.

Then he said quietly, "I am sorry, Jane. May I walk back to the house with you?"

"I thank you, no!" The girl's haughty manner was in evidence. Then going to Mr. Packard, she asked to be excused and walked quickly around the little lake. Merry watched her thoughtfully, then turning to her companion, she said, "Jean, I think I understand. May I tell her our secret now--tonight?"

The boy a.s.sented eagerly. "I shall be glad to have Jane know," he said.